A Chelsea man is facing charges in connection with raping a woman at knifepoint on July 4 and then threatening to report her to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if she told police about the assault, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
On Monday, Alfredo Romero-Cortez, 48, was charged with aggravated rape, assault and battery on a household member, assault with a dangerous weapon and intimidation of a witness in Chelsea District Court, the district attorney’s office said in a press release.
Chelsea police responded to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 5 and spoke with the 35-year-old victim, the district attorney’s office said. The victim told them she had been assaulted and raped by Romero-Cortez at his Chelsea apartment the previous day.
The victim told police that she and Romero-Cortez were about to have consensual sex when he became angry because she refused to proceed unless he used a condom, the district attorney’s office said. He then slapped her in the face three times and pulled out a pocketknife, she said.
The victim told police that Romero-Cortez threatened her with the knife, told her she “better do what he says” and then raped her, the district attorney’s office said. She wanted to report the assault, but before she left his apartment, he told her he’d report her to ICE if she did, and she feared being separated from her young daughter, she said.
The victim told police that she went to work the next morning but left early because she didn’t feel well, the district attorney’s office said. She then went to Brigham and Women’s for treatment and told a nurse there what had happened, and the hospital contacted Chelsea police.
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden commends the hospital’s staff for alerting authorities “on behalf of a victim too frightened — and understandably so — to take such action herself.”
“The facts here are troubling on numerous levels, certainly with the physical harm the victim suffered in the assault, along with her reluctance to report because of the threats about ICE and her fear of separation from her child. This is the type of combined anguish no one should have to experience,” Hayden said in the release.
Romero-Cortez is being held without bail pending a July 14 dangerousness hearing, the district attorney’s office said.
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